ExxonMobil: #1 Pollution Profiteer

The largest corporation in the world, ExxonMobil’s record-setting sales typically surpass the gross domestic product of two-thirds of all countries.[1] It comes as no surprise that in 2008 ExxonMobil reported the largest annual profit in U.S. history, making more than $45 billion.[2] However, in the past year ExxonMobil’s penchant for flouting basic laws and aggressive lobbying against mainstream climate change control legislation have raised eyebrows even of its staunchest supporters.  

 

On top of its 138 million tons of annual CO2 emissions equivalent,[3]  Exxon continues to push the legal limits of its ability to pollute. In 2008, the EPA fined Exxon $6.0 million for failing to comply with earlier settlements regarding illegal pollution at plants in Texas, Louisiana, and California.[4] In early 2009, a court sentenced an Exxon subsidiary to a $6.1 million fine for a criminal violation of the Clean Water Act: dumping 15,000 gallons of diesel into Mystic River in Massachusetts.[5]In Louisiana,  Exxon is also caught up in accusations of releasing 89,700 more pounds of more air pollution at one site than allowed by its permit -- including several types of illegal chemicals.[6]

 

For years ExxonMobil has propped up front groups like the American Petroleum Institute and the Global Climate Coalition, which promulgate the work of climate change skeptics and global warming apologists.[7] Now that a consensus has coalesced around a cap and trade scheme to reduce greenhouse gases, ExxonMobil has responded by dramatically upping the amount it spends on lobbying by 50 percent.[8]

 

 

ExxonMobil brought in $45.22 billion in net income in 2008.